The following document is based on notes taken by Jennifer A. Hillmer of Cleveland Metroparks during John Reinier’s March 23, 2022 GIS workshop. Although originally recorded in OneNote, Nathan W. Byer re-formatted these notes as an R Markdown file from late May-early June 2022. These notes are intended to be part of a living document - so recommendations and suggestions are welcome!
Cleveland Metroparks share drives (wcsc-srv-01_NR_layers)
GIS Aerials drive (GIS Imagery (W:))
Aerials maintained by GIS staff (\cmac-fs02): this location can be mapped to whatever drive you would live, but you will need permission from ITS to access these folders.
PostGIS layers in the NR_monitoring database schemas, including cm_base_layers and sensitivity
Local (WC server) shapefiles, particularly contours. (These are shapefiles, not database tables.)
You may have your own local project layers. Remember, these are generally not available to other users unless you ask John or Nathan to upload them for you.
Some background layers, such as aerial photos (raster data) or general topographic maps, can be brought in from external sources. These might not be “leaf-off” aerial photos, if that matters to you.
Prior to this tutorial, please ask either John or Nathan to make sure your QGIS instance has the proper connection settings for the PostGIS database. This will involve right-clicking on the PostGIS icon ( ), creating a new connection, and adding in some relevant information about the database. You will also need to set up a QGIS-specific master authentication password. Keep in mind that this is going to be specific to your current installation of QGIS - it will not carry forward to different machines, unlike your PostGIS login information!
You should ultimately wind up with a similar setup for this new connection to this:
You should now be able to access all layers in the NR_monitoring database.
If you were to save your current project - and that project has layers from the database - when you boot back up, you may need to re-enter your credentials. This will likely look like the following popup box:
There are 2 ways to add background layers to your project.
5. You can then right-click to add a layer to the project OR drag drop it into your layer list:
Regarding layer stylings: Layers that John R. has created default styling for should be styled automatically when you load them. If there is no default style, it will be styled randomly and you’ll have to modify the styling however you wish. The “index_of_nr_value” and “natural_features” (point layer) are two examples of layers that should have default styling. If they do not load with nice styling (I.e., categorized with different colors), please let John R. know.
Unfortunately, this option is more sensitive to how individual layer properties are set, which can lead to frustrating errors when trying to load layers. This is why we recommend using Option #1. If you prefer Option #2 for some reason, and you get errors, call John R. for assistance.
You should see QMS buttons, similar to those shown below. The QMS search feature is important and is show in the middle.
The plugin menu: While we will not go into detail about the plugin menu, it is worth familiarizing yourself with how this menu is arranged. On the left, you see the list of all plugins available for your QGIS, both installed and available for download. Some plugins come with your QGIS installation while most of them are made available via the plugin repositories.
You can temporarily enable or disable a plugin. To enable or disable a plugin, click its checkbox or double click its name. Plugins showing in red are not loaded because there is a problem. Click on the plugin name to see more details, or to reinstall or uninstall this plugin.
You should then see an “Install” option at the bottom right of the Plugins window. Click “Install”.
Once installed, and assuming your Web Toolbar is turned on (as described above), you should see the QMS icons in your toolbar.
By default, the list of available basemaps is quite limited. Thus, we recommend installing the contributed map pack. You can do so by navigating to the settings for the QMS plugin (Web–>QuickMapServices–>Settings)
Contours: Getting current, complete (esp. 2 foot) contours is still a work in progress. At present, the best single source for contours is probably the “contours_simp_3734” shapefile found at \wcsc-srv-01_NR_layers_simp_3734.shp
This layer provides 2 ft. contours within park boundaries (does not include newer acquisitions) and 10 ft. contours for areas outside the park (adjacent counties).
Once you have your layers in QGIS, you likely will want to customize the appearance of these layers as well - and create a tidy, interpretable map to summarize your efforts.
If styles are set as default in the database, the layers will load with the set style. Otherwise, the styling is random and uncategorized. The example below shows the headwater stream assessment point layer with the default styling saved in the database.
As a quick note on style options: There are many styling options here. Detailing them all is beyond the scope of this tutorial! You are encouraged to explore styling options on your own layers.
Once added, all of these items can be customized using the Item Properties options.
Map production can be simplified by using map templates. Basic portrait and landscape oriented templates are saved at: \wcsc-srv-01_map_templates.
To access the templates, go to Project > Layout Manager.
Setting up your own templates: You can also create and save your own templates. If you find a template that you like, feel free to let your CMP colleagues know about it!
Use of RShiny for visualization: John R. and Nathan B. are currently exploring ways of visualizing datasets using RShiny, an R-based way of making flexible web applications. If you are interested in RShiny apps, check out this COVID-19 tracker - built entirely in RShiny: https://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/covid19-tracker.html.